+++ Collective Works Gallery, a new gallery run by the Collective Works Artists’ Association, opened at 1311 Gladstone near Fernwood with a group show last night, Friday 15 February. It was sardine city when we arrived around 7:30: the place was jam packed. The first things that caught my eye were on the right, a couple of exquisite paintings on unframed handmade paper by Jeannie Peterson. ’Autumn Sun Poplar’ sold for $650, while ‘Moonlit Birches,’ showing a full moon silhouetted through leaves, is still available for the same price. ++ Chatted with Pete Rockwell, a photographer showing two photos, one of the Bare Mountain clearcut, the other a bloodied skinned rabbit carcasse, roadkill from the clearcut, which was not for sale. He gave me an update on the RCMP at the protest camp: they have the camp cordoned off still with police. What a criminal waste of tax dollars when a convict runs the province… ++ Art Critique time with James Fry on a vertical still life that he really did not like at all…we got into a fun bit of pseudo art criticism, with him playing the harsh critic, and myself playing the more indulgent, or indifferent straight man. I just thought the painting in question was mediocre. An amused woman remarked that she liked the purple cabbage, and I allowed how the purple cabbage was indeed well handled. Finally, we all agreed that the composition of the painting was problematic. ++ Good snacks, huge chocolate cake, place was packed, and not just with yuppies, but all ages, which was good… ++ Met old friend Yvonne ___, who showed me earings she makes, and mentions that more are on sale with other women’s arts and crafts across the street at She Said… ++ Tiny but exquisite hand-made paper collage of her Jewish heritage by Dorothy Field, this one entitled ‘Beatrice, Ella and Eric.’ ++ Introduced Yvonne to my dear wife Dawn who is the loveliest lady there. ++ Seen in passing: Virginia SmallFry, Jane Storrier, Linda Darby…. hugs and congratulations to Virginia for 29 years of married life with James Fry… brief chat with Jane near Sean Newton’s impressive limited edition (10/25) linocut print entitled ‘Cow Skulls’ ($350) which reminds me of one of Georgia O’Keefe’s favorite motifs… Sean also has a smaller watercolour ‘Still life with crow’ (and scull) and will be the first artist in the Collective Works Gallery to have a solo expo for three weeks, after this one runs its course. I am informed by his genial artiste wife Anne Hoban that it will be a show of nudes… ++ Jane and I meet an artist by the name of Jenus Friesen, not related to Gordon, but a nice lady in any case who mentions her website: www.designsourcegraphics.ca. Jane and I both tell Jenus that we do mandalas, and we chat briefly about Jack Wise, the great legendary Buddhist caligraphic mandala master of Pacifica… Jane says that Wise took great care in making his handmade brushes… ++ Unusual small framed ‘mixed media’ photo of skeleton with female child in a ghostlike white drawing on black background by Anne Hoban, wife of Sean Newton… ++ Tradition Surrealiste: a lovely black and white photo of a headless Greek goddess sculpture double exposed over the corner of an enclosed brick-walled garden by Sara Gasman… ++ Strange Surrealistic Japanese fired clay perforated bleach bottle assemblages by Harumi Ota, a master potter and glaze painter, could be better displayed. Three of them are priced at $550 each… ++ ENFIN: the very French, very whimsical, and very unusual tile jig-saw pictures of flappers, variations on a bright jazzy theme, with different coloured grouts, by Isa Sevrain. Liberte in blue with arrows, hearts and patterns around the female figure, Egalite with blue-rose flowers, and Fraternite with rose words, they make a trio which works well together, or can be bought separately for $1300 each…For further info about the Collective Works Gallery in Fernwood, Victoria’s most characteristic neighbourhood, please phone 592-6617, or visit their website: www.collectiveworks.ca. +++
Tag Archive: La Rosa
+++ A recent visit to see Portland-based Marshall Stokes’ pyrographic art expo at Incite & Concyse in Victoria got me thinking again about that great American city where I lived for a while in the early eighties. Last November, after not having seen the place since 1981, I returned for a brief visit with my wife Dawn, who had never been there before. Dawn was very impressed with it, as I was sure she would be. ++ We stayed downtown at the Mark Spencer Hotel, named apparently after the English department store Marks & Spencer. The downtown streets were very brightly lit at night by thousands of white lights festooning the trees. During the day, we didn’t see any children to speak of in the streets downtown, but that is probably as it should be, being the middle of the week. Rain was coming down, so we felt right at home in that respect. ++ When I was in Portland in the early eighties, I lived and worked downtown at a shop called Bohemia. I was curious to see if the place was still there. It turned out that the hotel was not far from the old Bohemia space on Sixth Avenue SW, and I found it easily enough, but far from being the vintage clothes and antique shop that my partners Gabor and Renee Varga decided upon, it was now set up as a Latino food preparation locale. Though late at night, I could see through the window that there were a number of men busy at work, but there did not seem to be any sales counter. ++ I felt a rush of strange emotions going through me, remembering my lonely time in that space where I spent months preparing the walls and painting them with a decorative design motif taken from Josef Maria Olbrich of the Wiener Werkstatte. ++ The design was stenciled on the rough plaster surface, then painted by hand, serving as a repeating border motif surrounding the edges of the two main side walls of the rectangular shop space. It was a rectangle with rounded corners, inside of which were painted stylized roses in two shades of blue on a white background. It took me months to complete, but sadly, it had been painted over. ++ In those days, the big Portland dance band of note was called Upepo, led by the genius Victoria-born guitarist Charles Croft. Their big hit from the one album they produced was called ‘Condo, Condo,’ which satirized the pretenstions of the yuppies buying condos in the building boom. After weeks of painting the walls by myself while listening to KBOO, I looked forward to going out with the Vargas to nightclubs like the Brasserie Montmartre, which I believe is still going strong. These days the big band of note is Pink Martini, which, like Upepo, mixes Latin, jazz, pop and lounge music to produce a very popular groove which is often played by Jurgen Goethe on CBC Vancouver’s ‘Diskdrive.’ ++ The Mark Spencer is not far from the Burnside area, which is still one of the rougher parts of downtown. Despite reading reports in Victoria papers about how the City of Portland is supposed to have solved its homeless problem, we saw long line-ups of poor people on the sidewalks snaking into food kitchens. To Portland’s credit, we did not see nearly as many beggars sitting on the sidewalks as one still does in Victoria. Some of the poor sold the local steet newspaper. We attended a noon mass in a modern chapel on Burnside run by the Franciscans which was somewhat hidden behind a non-descript facade. ++ Near the chapel was Powell’s Books, which bills itself as the biggest bookstore in the world. Whether it is or not, it sure is big, taking up three or four floors of a whole city block, with its own underground parking. I found my way to the Irish section, and bought four or five books on the Celtic Renaissance, Irish eccentrics and photography. ++ The Portland Art Museum was having a major show on the great American artist Chuck Close. This middle-aged bearded man, who is wheelchair-bound, produces huge faces in various media that use mosaic principles of design and colour coalescence. Being one of the first people in that day, I had practically the whole show to myself. I was very impressed by the show, and chatted with one of the young ear-ringed docents about it. ++ As I left the Museum, I noticed a poor black man, apparently mentally unstable, shouting at the top of his lungs and doing very strange movements, including getting down on his knees and apparently praying, while slowly making his way up the boulevard toward the University campus. As great as the City of Roses is with its wonderful architecture, restaurants, galleries and music scene, this man symbolized for me the work that is yet to be done for the poor and mentally unstable in both of our countries. +++
+++ With the CBC Radio report announcing that the so-called ‘Conservative’ government in Ottawa is getting set to try to extend the tour of duty for Canadian troops in Afghanistan to 2011, my mind is preoccupied on this first Sunday of Lent with thoughts of war and peace. The silence of the Canadian Catholic bishops on this unjust war is stifling and shameful. One does not need to be a Christian pacifist, which I hope I am, to understand that this war does not by any means conform to the so-called ‘just war doctrine’ of the Roman Catholic Church. So, there has been a huge abrogation of responsibility here not just by the bishops, but also by the priests, deacons and lay presiders who never say a thing about it from the pulpit, and by the Catholic press, which has yet to have a serious nation-wide discussion on these issues. Perhaps now that the Afghan matter looks set to be made an election issue by the parties, it is time that the national debate on what we are doing there should happen. ++ Some people think that an election at this time would be unwise, mainly, its seems, because they can’t stomach the idea that the bumbling grey man who leads the Liberal Party of Canada, might just win the contest by default. I don’t particularly like Stephane Dion either, and his position on the war is confused as only Liberal Party policy can be, but in terms of incremental disengagement, he makes just slightly more sense than the Prime Minister. ++ If I understand his position, it is to have troops left there in a peacekeeping and protective-defensive capacity after the current period ends next year, but not engaged in pro-active offensive patrols. He condemns the Tories for their ‘never-ending war,’ but does not say how long Canadians would act as peacekeepers there. The Bloc, the NDP and the Greens want immediate withdrawal of troops. The latter position is the one that the left wing of the Liberal Party should pursue in order to change Dion’s mind. The Liberals should then enter into talks with the other opposition parties to form a peace coalition to dump the Tories. Otherwise, divided as they are into four opposition parties, the Tories are likely to get re-elected again with a minority parliament that will continue to squander innocent Canadian and Afghan lives without any kind of real mandate by a majority of voters. ++ To better enable Catholic pacifists and other Christian pacifists in this country to understand the history of the American Catholic Pacifist movement, I provide a link here to a short outline from the Houston Texas Catholic Worker online newspaper: http://www.cjd.org/paper/pacifism.html ++ This link is also found in the tags and in the blogroll to the right under the heading ‘CATHOLIC PACIFISM: Dorothy Day, Pierre Maurin + Catholic Workers.’ +++
+++ Earlier this winter, while painting a series of Christian psychedelic mandalas to be photographed for Island Catholic New’s Christmas number, I played James Fry’s latest Magic Canvas CD, entitled ‘Ballads,’ over and over again. There is something very relaxing, one might almost say hypnotic in the tempo that James takes with many of these nostalgic tunes. Starting off with Jimmy Van Heusen’s wistful ‘Imagination,’ James sets the Romantic, melancholic and nostalgic theme for the whole set with the lyrics ‘imagination is funny…it makes a cloudy day sunny…’ ++ ’Every Time We Say Goodbye’ by Robbie Williams keeps up this mood, and even seems to have a similar melody. Descending arpeggios suggesting falling leaves make for a tasty jazz guitar intro on Johnny Mercer’s ‘Autumn Leaves,’ and the melancholic mood is sustained with Rogers and Hart’s ‘My Funny Valentine.’ +++ With Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Send in the Clowns,’ one might discern self-pitying cynicism in lyrics such as “don’t you love farce?,” but the Romantic mood is thankfully brought back with James Fry’s own composition ‘Like I do,’ a love song to his wife Virginia SmallFry, to whom the disk is dedicated, and a black and white photograph of whom is found on the cover. ++ ”Simple truth is… when you look at me…can’t see the forest for the trees… I know that reason cannot qualify… this bond that grows each day renewed… ’cause when the singin’ ‘s all said an’ done… nobody’s ever gonna love you… like I do…” ++ ’Like I do’ has recently been remixed in the studio into an uptempo extended dance mix which is really quite catchy and is apparently a late night dance crowd hit in some circles. ++ Tom Waits’ ‘Blue Valentine’ has lovely guitar playing, a strange bitter paranoid mood and paints a picture of desperation and eternal exile. That’s followed by another Rogers and Hart Romantic chestnut, ‘Lady is a Tramp,’ wherein James drops the beginning of some words, so that it comes out ” ‘ats why the lady is a tramp… ” Looks funny here on the screen, but sounds alright the way he does it. The Romantic mood is sustained again with Meyer and Bretton’s ‘For Heaven’s Sake:’ “while Heaven’s giving us a break, let’s fall in love, for Heaven’s sake…” Fats Waller’s ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ (“savin’ all my love for you”) and Heyman and Levant’s ‘Blame it on my Youth,’ while still Romantic, suggest a hint of world-weariness. ++ Koehler and Arlen’s ‘Stormy Weather’ is full of despair and self-pity, leading quite naturally to Elvis Costello’s melancholic ‘Almost Blue,’ which, while still in the blue mood, is not quite so resigned as the former. ++ A righteous Billy Bragg-like anger surges through the Croydon-accented sung lyric, upbeat tempo and assertive percussion in James Fry’s version of Bob Dylan’s classsic anti-war protest song ‘With God on Your Side.’ Dylan’s lyrics are still topical: ”I fall to the floor, and if God’s on our side, He’ll stop the next war…” This song, along with ‘Like I do,’ is one of the more convincing performances on the CD, and would fit in well with the Village 900 AM playlist. Indeed, if this ‘Ballads’ disk is rereleased, it might be an idea to add the new ‘Like I do’ remix to the set, and rename the CD after that trance dance hit. The disk ends with a short wistful endpiece entitled ‘Time it Was’ by Simon and Garfunkel with the sage advice: ”preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you…” ++ The ‘Ballads’ CD by James Fry is available from Magic Canvas Productions, contact: smallfryenterprises@shaw.ca or phone: 1-250-595-0790. ++++++ DON’T FORGET CAM CUMMING!… Got a nice little note from James Fry thanking me for the ‘brilliant and insightful review,’ and encouraging readers to ‘rush out and buy this …’ but seriously, folks, James would also like everyone to know that his ”Ballads” CD was recorded by Cam Cumming at Earbone Studios in Fernwood: earbone@shaw.ca. +++
+++ ”Nine concentric spheres turn around the Earth; the first seven of these are the planetary heavens (heavens of the moon, of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn); the eighth, the heaven of fixed stars; the ninth, the crystalline heaven , also called the Primum Mobile. It is surrounded by the Empyrean, where the Rose of the Blessed opens, immeasurable, around a point which is God. Not unexpectedly, there are nine choruses of the Rose. This, roughly speaking, is the general configuration of Dante’s world, dominated, as the reader will have observed, by the prestige of the numbers 1 and 3 and the circle.” Franco Maria Ricci published Jorge Luis Borges writing on Dante in ‘The Divine Commentary,’ on page 71 of FMR No 3, 1984. +++ This article by the great blind Argentine poet is accompanied by fantastic illustrations to Dante’s poems by the great English mystic poet-painter William Blake, watercolours of an almost halucinogenic quality. +++
+++ ICN FEB 2008: MOURNING MARGARET: ONE YEAR ON…One year after the death of his dear mother Margaret Patricia Harris (1923-2007), ICN Founding Editor and former Concerned Citizens’ Coalition candidate Patrick Jamieson writes about the mourning process in these excerpts from the original longer piece printed in the latest February 2008 number of the Island Catholic News in a full page article, on page three. The article is accompanied by a black and white photo of the author’s late mother with his father James Jamieson, with the accompanying caption: ‘Margaret and Jim Jamieson circa 1951 in Edmonton. At that point they had two sons with four more children to follow in the decade of the 50s.’ +++ It will be a year February 8th since my mother died and seems time to remember a few more significant aspects of her personality, life and dynamics in our collective family. ++ We are all having a very difficult time, I would say, in integrating her physical disappearance. ++ My sister Christine and I wrote tributes and eulogies a year ago at the time of the death which were printed in Island Catholic News. ++ Mourning, it seems to me, requires self-conscious processing if we are to truly grow through it. If we are to reap the benefits mourning grants to us as a grace. ++ Too often the funeral itself is seen as a sour imposition upon family and friends and perhaps should be done without. As Christians and Catholics my family feel they have no real choice. It is spiritually too important to say goodbye properly and start the process of living beyond. ++ The funeral and the year following were a critically important period of growth for those left behind, a gift just as much as the ones granted when she was alive. ++ For my mother was someone who in her being granted gifts by her mere presence. It was always a pleasure as a youth to introduce my close friends to her, knowing her charm would work on them. I enjoyed watching how they reacted as it would reveal something about them, their character. ++ She was hospitable and graceful in her loving way. Personally what I miss most is just being able to sit in her presence and connect. Chat about the day. Bring her up to date on what is going on in the community, with the newspaper and often within the petty world of politics within the Catholic church. That connection was a metaphysical compass bearing which gave meaning and direction to the deeper regions of my life. ++ II. She went to Saint Anne’s Academy, graduating in 1940, so her roots were in the region, although she travelled away with my father’s military postings until 1977 when they could return upon retirement to help care for her mother who lived on the Island from 1920, coming from Northern England at Darlington, a Quaker town. ++ My father, after sixty-five years of married life together, it must be said, misses her the most acutely. Although some of her children are close behind. She was one of those people with a sort of personality that insinuates itself deeply and permanently into your psyche. She was not to be denied. In a good sense, as they say. ++ My father, I would say, has had a very hard time filling in the gap. He still lives in their condominium apartment but finds it haunted. Wanting to move out of its confines but realizing it is much too soon. Their apartment represents physically what we have left of her in a way. A sort of permanent shrine, none of her children wish to see it sold yet. ++ Christmas was interesting that way. The feelings from the years when she constructed and reconstructed the traditions that had grown up through the years. Because we were a rootless military family sort of group; Vancouver, Edmonton, Whitehorse, Ottawa and Oromocto, New Brunswick as well as Chilliwack, Winnipeg and finally Victoria all added their dimensions. It always seemed like it would go on forever with her mystically at the helm. ++ My father has kept up his refugee work but with an obvious lessening of intensity at age 86. But of course he realizes that it is all largely a distraction from this gaping maw at the centre of our collective life created by her passing. His challenge, and ours, is to symbolically let her go again and again over these next few years. ++ Just before my mother passed, a great grandson, Jamie, was born who she was able to hold two months before her death. Now within the year of her passing a great granddaughter, Poppy, is born in Winnipeg and my father looks forward to meeting her soon. ++ My sister, Rita, who lives in Winnipeg has drawn the connection already in her visiting with the baby and feels it helps in some small if concrete way. The tangible experience of healing through mourning. ++ … IV. My mother’s creativity was how she created a whole phenomenal universe for her family. Physically and emotionally. It was a power she took for granted yet tempered with an alluring charm and graciousness. She rarely had to threaten. He method of discipline was largely that of charm. One never wished to disappoint her or go against her best values. It lent itself to great difficulty when it was time to leave the emotional security of the family nest. ++ She could be fiercely aggressive and highly articulate in defending and explaining her values, particularly in the earlier years when it was key to our earliest and permanent formation. ++ This whole way of life she wove, converged at a central point in the values and spiritual principles that guided us out through its cone at the end and into weaving similar patterns in our own lives, ones that we had all but unconsciously learned. ++ As my sister wrote in her eulogy, such a richly symbolic figure when she dies leave a huge gap. The temptation is to try to fill that gap with another person, frenzied activity or some other false substitution. ++ But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: “Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a kind of substitute: we must simply hold out and see it through. This sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap: he doesn’t fill it, but on the contrary He keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our communion with each other.” +++
+++ LOFTUS, Gertrude Mary (Sr. Mary Anglelica), born June 24, 1908, in Greenwood, B. C., of Irish/Scottish ancestry, died at Saint Anne’s Residence in Victoria, B. C., on January 10, 2008, at 99 years of age. ++ Having made contact with the Sisters in Kitsilano, she entered the Sisters of Saint Anne on January 10, 1925, and pronounced her vows at Saint Anne’s Academy, Victoria, B. C., on February 2, 1927. Last February she celebrated her 80th anniversary as a Sister of Saint Anne. ++ Despite twice being stricken with TB, Sister Mary Anglelica’s years of ministry were many and varied, and brought her to several missions in British Columbia. Her ministry encompassed cooking, housekeeping, laundry, gardening, assisting the nurses on night duty, serving meals to patients, and stamp collecting, as well as teaching crafts to patients and the handicapped. ++ She ministered in Campbell River Hospital, St. Augustine’s in Vancouver, Smithers Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital, and for 24 years at Mount St. Mary Hospital in Victoria, at the sisters’ residences on Johnson Street, Mount Saint Angela, and Begbie Street. It was while stationed at Mount Saint Mary that, in addition to her other responsibilities, Sister Mary Angelica began making pottery and teaching basket weaving. She served in volunteer capacity at the Saint Vincent de Paul Store and at Arbutus Crafts, teaching basket weaving for 22 years. She retired to Saint Ann’s Residence in 1989. ++ Predeceased by her parents Mary Kennedy and John Patrick Loftus, sister Mrs. Irene Proctor (Leo), and cousin Joe (Marie) Loftus, she is survived by nieces Maureen (Norm) Okerstrom and Sheila (Duncan) Ross; several cousins: Gail Jones, Ann Cole, Bill Loftus, Pat Loftus, Terry Loftus, Joan Uede, Susan Hepburn, Betty Wallace, Mike Loftus, and David Loftus; and her religious community, the Sisters of Saint Anne. ++ Prayers were offered January 14 at Saint Anne’s Residence, 2474 Arbutus Road, Victoria, B. C.; where Mass of the Resurrection was offered on January 15. Interment Hatley Memorial Gardens. +++ This article was originally published by the B. C. Catholic weekly newspaper, on January 21, 2008 in the OBITUARIES section of the CLASSIFIEDS, on page 14, with a black and white photo. +++ A link to the Saint Anne’s Residence at Queenswood is found on the blogroll under the heading ‘QUEENSWOOD,’ in the tags, or at this address: http://www.queenswoodcentre.com/newsletter.html +++ B. C. CATHOLIC newspaper website is provided in the CCC WE BLOG blogroll to the right under the heading ‘Catholic, B.C.’ +++
+++ I write out of sheer desperation. Some people write for pleasure, enjoy the process and make money; I’ve made a little while struggling on the disability pension for the past twenty frustrating quasi-suicidal years and when I think back to when I read all of Proust – au recherche de temps grande fondu – I think that man really had the real ticket, in spite of a lack of humour, and perhaps I love my electric typewriter more than any member of the opposite hex. Everything costs money. ++ The structure I impose on myself to avoid insanity is a dubious one but it works. Commodity – the bias of the world according to Shakespeare – my refuge and bane. The price of everthing. While we all know that welfare is a death sentence, sometimes there are small victories that make the whole thing worthwhile, but the thirty-nine thousand dollar Jag-dream awaits. One day I will write for money. One day I will date J. K. Rowlings and the Queen of England. One day. We live forever on the never never back in my hometown. ++ Tomorrow is cheque day and the poor of B. C. can breathe easy for a second, with Christmas coming and the sun always shining on Welfare Wednesday. Beating the system is a full-time occupation and every government office should employ a small core of system beaters, just to be on the safe side. When every farthing counts every penny looms large. When every penny has signficance a twenty spot is still a windfall, even though it can hardly buy anything et al. ++ I retired from acting because there was no money in it, sold a few paintings and reinvented myself as a writer of small chapbooks. A meagre war. A war of attrition. George Orwell and his downs and outs very much became a god to me. I thought of changing my name to Eric Blair. Ordinary milk I cut in half, which makes a tolerable cup of coffee, with extra brown sugar stolen from Starbucks. Toilet paper I buy in single rolls. I use dishsoap for my laundry and buy tea candles in bulk. Every now and then I buy two bottles of wine and have a welfare party. This is as good as it gets. ++ It’s a crying shame and grievous sin when money means everything, yet underneath the gay camaraderie, the joking, the drinks, the winks, the watching videos and making frantic love is the ticking of the clock of money, for those where time is money and money is time and finally one is driven to church to say please sir, I’d like a little more….time. ++ So we all reap alms for oblivion. For it is to the church that we must ultimately turn when times get rough, and times have been so very rough over these last twenty long years. ++ I’m in constant pain and constant prayer mode. Poverty is depression and anger is depression in another form, but I can’t market my anger, and so must subdue it, allay it, deploy it and finally satirize it, before the past twenty-seven years become a cross which I bear, from which I learn nothing, bearing only bitter fruit. ++ Sure I wear clothes with stains on them. I’m proud of the stains… to me a badge of honour and an indication that I never sold out or sold myself short. The alms for oblivion take many forms and exactly what was the oblivion Shakespeare spoke of and the great sized monster of ingratitude. How grateful should we be for our blessings and how willing to move to where the grass is greener and the bananas riper and the lotuses faster and sleeker??? ++ A cup of coffee is heaven, salmon and mayo a benefice and a donut with filling the high life; a day without a touthache is a good day and the evidence of hot water for a bath is the evidence of a God, who art not David Bowie. ++ Many times I have been suicidal – tobacco-related illness and the ghosts of George Orwell and Beckett hover close by and assure there will be tailor mades in heaven. Finally I have my superb books to sustain me in moments of smoker’s cough. The pages crack open. I enter and escape. One day I shall not return. And then the bus pass will not be so important. The window is open… The field is clear for jumping. But upwards with wings or downwards in smoke is anyone’s guess, and then the many many I have helped with their little lives are going to have to fend for themselves, as I make my way towards the podium. +++
+++ Island Catholic News is one of the very few publications in Victoria besides LA ROSA that has the courage to publish the work of DAVID JURE. A Special Section is set aside here in the Blogroll of the Concerned Citizens’ Coalition WE BLOG site for this genius GLOBAL ARTIST OF ARTS under the heading ‘JURIANA.’ It will pertain to anything written by or about DAVID JURE, JOHN DAVID BURKE, or DAVID BURKE. The following link takes one to the Island Catholic News website. David has a piece entitled ‘Alms for Oblivion – Everything Costs Money,’ in the current February number of ICN, which will be reprinted here as a new posting, and added to the website blogroll…if possible! ++ http://www.islandnet.com/~icn/ +++
